Instead we should get several hard cover copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and use them as cranial therapeutic devices and apply liberally and repeatedly.
I read J Kb’s post and my brain flashed to passages of the book I have read dutifully almost every year for the past 4 decades.
And then at the end of the book, after Winston has been properly re-educated by the Party.
For me and I am not afraid to say many others, 2+2=5 represents the evils of the all powerful state just as the Swastika or the Sickle and Hammer. And it is even worse than that, it shows that the human soul has been broken, tamed, diluted into subservience to the State. 2+2=5 the death of what makes you human.
What I wrote previously still holds, because Carr was making silly pseudointellectual statements. If somebody tries to MAKE you believe, or say you believe, 2+2=5 or any equivalent, they need to be shot in the face.
In 1981 I was working in Minneapolis area as a computer geek. I was writing some software an in the process found the log in page.
It was a terminal based thing and it had this message that was in a box of asterisks. Just the normal stuff about company proprietary and junk. The sort of thing that your eyes just glaze over after the first half dozen readings.
I inserted a line that read:
* Big Brother is watching. *
Into that blurb and forgot about it. It was a joke. I didn’t think anything more about it.
So a month goes by. I’m called into the comptroller’s office. He was the top guy just below the owner of the company.
He points me to the login screen and says “What’s this?” I play dumb (collage kid, right?) “Huh?”
He points to and then reads “Big brother is watching.”
“Mrs (80+ year old that had been with the company since its founding) spotted it a couple of weeks ago. She didn’t know what it meant. So she’s been asking around the office. She’s asked every person in the office. Nobody knew what it meant. So she asked me.” He tells me.
“They don’t know what it means. I *do*. Get it out of there.”
I want to my terminal and took care of it immediately.
My take away from that conversation was even scarier than what J.Kb and Miguel are saying. It isn’t that 1984 is being used as an instruction manual, it is that most people don’t have a clue as to the existence of the book, much less the concepts.
So when some nurdle says “2+2=5” we hear the words of “1984” echoing through our heads and something clenches at our hearts. We look to the weapons rack to make sure we are ready. We check the chamber one more time, just to make sure.
But if you were to say that to the vast masses, most would not recognize it. Most have no idea how terrifying “Big Brother is watching.” Really is. Most can’t even see the news morph before their eyes. “Those that control history control the present”
Nuetron bomb??
Nah … too messy to clean up.
Perhaps chemical warfare … We need a gas that combines the scent of hard work, the stench of logic, a whiff of conservatism … just make them run for the hills.
Once you can see the fnords, you can’t unsee them….
I have to refer to the “ST:TNG” episode where Picard was being tortured. There were four lights shining, and the torturer kept telling Picard that there were five lights.